Goody Two Shoes

I arrived at the Copa at 1:30 and sat there staring at strangers for a half an hour, Brown students talking Derrida and Freud, some Rimconners discussing their recital, a few townie kids trying to be artsy, some part of me thinking that Bart wasn’t going to show. But he walked in the door at two o’clock sharp and pulled a stray chair up to the table. What he said caught me by surprise. “Daron,” he said, “You must be the sanest person I know.”

I laughed in spite of how miserable I felt. “What?”

“No, seriously.” He took his coat off. “At least I have a 99% chance of having a coherent conversation with you.” He grinned expectantly.

“Jeez, how am I supposed to answer that?” I turned my empty coffee cup around in my hands. “Okay, how about this one, what’s the deal with you leaving school?”
“I couldn’t tell you this with Roger the Walking Gossip Machine there. I’m getting out of town to avoid a scandal.” His eyes shone.

“Well, I never told you the whole story of why I left Boston. I got myself kicked out there, too, thought that would be the end of it. But my father pulled some strings, got me sent down here, and I went ’cause I didn’t have anything else to do. But now,” he spread his arms. “I have reached the proverbial point of no return. I’ll never be able to show my face around here again. I’m sorry I never told you all this before.”

“We,” I let myself smile as I said it, “We all have our little secrets to keep.”

“Cool.” He jittered in his seat. “At least I know you can keep one.”

I thought about that for a moment. “Won’t your running to Boston make it look kind of suspicious?”

“Of course not.” He tapped the table. “The official story is obvious. I’m throwing away a brilliant career in the symphony to start a rock band with my best friend. That’ll be scandal enough for my parents.”

“Wait,” Too many things were trying to sink in at once. “You’re not going to live with your parents?”

“No, I’m moving in with my girlfriend, Michelle.”

“Aha.” I sat back. “And what’s this band you’re starting?”

He smiled. “I’m not. You are. It’s called Moondog Three, and you’re going up there during the break to look for a singer, right?”

Comments 1

marktreble wrote:

Reading this the second time, with the benefit of having seen the future, I finally understand. Daron and Bart are having an affair. A love affair. An asexual love affiar that has nothing to do with romance. It’s about friendship and music.

Today that might be called a bromance, but that doesn’t do it justice at all. If their relationship can be viewed as a love affair with no sex and no romance, just friendship and music, it gets a lot easier to understand. And sheds a great deal of new light on Daron’s capacity to love.